The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Modern society has become increasingly automated due to the interconnectivity of systems and devices. For example, smart homes feature systems and devices that enable programmed control of lighting, heating, refrigeration, home security, and other aspects of the home based on personal preference. As another example, automatic alerts can be sent based on conditions that meet a set of criteria, such as automated text messages or emails sent in response to a breach in a home security system.
One way of facilitating automation involves polling a server computer to obtain data that the server computer has collected about events. For example, if an individual wants to receive an email alert only if a specific post appears on a website, then a system may be programmed to poll the relevant web server repeatedly, in set intervals, until an event such as the specific post is found. However, repeatedly polling a server for data every few minutes, when the data may not exist at almost all the polling intervals, wastes network bandwidth, memory and CPU resources. When the desired event may not occur for hours or days, repeated polling wastes resources. Furthermore, if the event occurs just after a particular polling operation, the polling process described above will not find the event until the next poll is scheduled, which creates a lag in response time. In some contexts, the resulting time lag is not acceptable. Thus, without a targeted approach to requesting relevant data at specific periods of time when the likelihood of successfully finding an event is higher, polling can be inefficient and resource-intensive.
Thus, there is a need for an improved data processing method that can improve the efficiency of polling operations.